Monthly Archives: February 2015

RESOLUTION REVOLUTION

Making New Year’s Resolutions is not new. In fact, the practice originated thousands of years ago. Around 2000 BC, the Babylonians celebrated the New Year beginning with the first new moon after the first day of spring. Their resolution involved returning all the farming equipment they had borrowed during the previous year. In 46 BC, Julius Caesar created the Julian calendar, which established January first as the start of the New Year. Janus, the mythical god of beginnings, became the symbol for resolutions, because he had two faces that could look back to the past and ahead to the future. [1]
The definition of a resolution is: “a decision you make on the first day of the year about things you intend to do or stop during that year.” [2] But how well will January resolutions take hold? Author/researcher, Steve Shapiro, states: “According to our study, only 8% of Americans say they always achieve their New Year’s resolutions. The way it seems to work now, setting a New Year’s Resolution is a recipe for defeat.” This dismal statistic was gleaned from a random telephone survey conducted by Shapiro, author of “Goal-Free Living,” with the assistance of Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton N.J. [3] That’s not a very reassuring or motivating success rate! The same percentage (8%) of people who achieve their New Year’s Resolutions was researched on 1/1/2014 and appeared in the University of Scranton, Journal of Clinical Psychology. [4}
It seems very probable, when reflecting on the abysmal success rate of New Year’s Resolutions that most people resolve to do or stop doing something during the year using only their conscious minds. That part of our mind is in charge when we are awake and makes up about 10% of our total mind power. It also is the willpower part of our mind, which is like a roller coaster, alternately strong and weak, strong and weak. It is challenging to keep the willpower strong enough, long enough, to eliminate unwanted attitudes, behaviors and habits and replace them with positive ones. Also, because habits reside in the subconscious mind, which cannot be accessed by the conscious mind, all one’s conscious mind can do is try to overpower the resolution habit and keep it at bay. Because the “roots of the problem” are still connected in the subconscious mind, something can trigger them to reactivate the habit at any time.

Hypnosis is the “revolutionary” additive that can make successful outcomes for resolutions more achievable. When people utilize hypnosis to make a change, they benefit from the 90% of the mind that is subconscious, which contains a record of each person’s entire life. Through hypnosis, a person can delve into that storehouse of knowledge to locate the reasons for unwanted issues. By disconnecting the continued influence of those reasons, it is possible for a person to replace them with positive, healthful actions that become their new reality through repetition. Changes made through hypnosis can be both effective and permanent.
Studies clearly indicate the potential benefits of hypnosis for weight loss, which is representative of how it can help with countless issues. A meta-analysis conducted by the University of Connecticut, with the results published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (1996), found “people using hypnosis were able to lose, on average, almost 2.5 times as much weight as those not using hypnosis.” Further, the study found “the correlation analysis indicated that the benefits of hypnosis increased substantially over time.” Based on the outcomes of this and similar studies, “a task force of the American Psychological Association validated hypnosis as an adjunct procedure for the treatment of obesity.” [5]
References:
[1] http://www.ezinearticles.com/?the-origins-of-new-year’s-resolutions